


Hand in Hand, Arm in Arm

by Piarelei



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Growing Old Together, It's really fluffy I guess?, M/M, The only purpose of this thing is to be a cup of tea for your soul really, tell me if i succeeded
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25097455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piarelei/pseuds/Piarelei
Summary: Steve climbs over him, settles clumsy and heavy against his side, squeezing himself close so that they don't fall over. Like second nature, Billy wraps him in his arms, fits a hand to his waist, the other to his nape; they worked it out years ago, how they slot together, puzzle pieces forming the picture of their life.Or Steve and Billy live long enough to grow old.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 13
Kudos: 36





	1. Hot Water Bottle for your Mind

**Author's Note:**

> I needed some old people Harringrove because old people are so fucking interesting and sweet and getting old would be great, to be honest. 
> 
> I marked this as a multi-chaptered fanfiction, but it's really just little snippets of their life together I guess, so subscribe if you want more because I will not be really regular on this. There isn't really a plot, eh.
> 
> (Billy and Steve are around mid-forties/fifties in this one, so not really _old_ but getting there)
> 
> Enjoy!

Steve closes the door with a last smile and stays put for a while, let the exhaustion of dealing with young people roll off of his skin like fog. He takes a deep breath. 

Billy is already sitting on their couch when he comes back, TV on and pants off, socket-clad feet propped on the armrest. He is silent, but Steve feels the turmoil in the room like a small tempest. 

"So, how did you find Benjamin?" he prods, tapping on a shin to get sitting room. 

Billy retracts his legs for half a second, just the time for Steve to sprawl, before immediately settling back, digging heels in his lap. He grunts for all answer. 

Steve lays a hand on his bony knee, rubs at the scar-smooth skin here, tugs at the hair scattered between reconstructive tissue. Billy grunts once more. Steve doesn't push further, turns his attention to the program; it's a soap opera Billy likes to watch but tells everyone that he enjoys it for the irony. 

The credits roll and Billy shifts a bit, shakes his bad knee and makes Steve's tight jiggle. 

Steve lays both of his palms on it, rubs slow circles with his thumbs, feels Billy uncoil like a snake, tension seeping out of him and running over the cushions, disappear through the floorboards. 

"Better?" he asks. 

Very characteristically, Billy grunts. 

"It's bothered me all day. It's gonna rain."

Steve hums, steadies his hands over the joint to warm it. 

"That why you were a dick to Benjamin?"

When Steve finally raises his eyes to Billy's, he's scowling furiously at him. 

"He's not good enough for her."

Steve rolls his eyes.

"They're sixteen, he's not gonna propose." He blows hair out of his eyes. "You barely know him, it was just one meal and he was nervous."

Billy sniffs, turns away; he can't get very far when Steve is rubbing his knee; he does it very well after almost thirty years together. 

"I don't like how he looks at her."

Steve scoffs, remembers Billy when he was a teenager, so loud, pushing people into walls and kissing strangers.

"Oh yeah, you can talk, big guy."

Billy scowls harder; it accentuates his wrinkles, skin creased by a lot of laughter, some worry, a few disappointments. Steve cannot help but find him impossibly more charming. He tugs a hand from where Billy has his arms crossed and kiss the back of it, emotions making him soft somewhere between his ribs. Keep it there for a beat. 

"I wasn't like that," he argues, and he's not wrong. He was a lot worse. 

Steve squeezes his fingers. 

"No, you weren't. Benjamin is a good kid. Maddy is lucky to have found a sweet boy like him."

Billy makes a face, mouths "sweet boy" to the ceiling, makes fun of Steve to no one in particular. Steve pinches his shin; he barely reacts to it, just shakes him off with a grin. 

"Madeline is too young."

Steve smiles, pats Billy legs in a silent request to be freed. He complies and Steve climbs over him, settles clumsy and heavy against his side, squeezing himself close so that they don't fall over. Like second nature, Billy wraps him in his arms, fits a hand to his waist, the other to his nape; they worked it out years ago, how they slot together, puzzle pieces forming the picture of their life. 

"She's sixteen and you're not her father," Steve remarks and hides grin in Billy's shirt when he goes on a rant about Lucas being an useless parental figure if he cannot protect his own daughter from degenerates. 

It lasts for a while, Billy being really worked up about Benjamin. Steve simply lays there and listens, tries not to comment too much, because Billy has never be anything but irrational since he had held Madeline in his arms and she had cooed up at him. He has never considered Madeline his niece, she is so much more. 

At the end, he deflates against the cushions and Steve props himself up on his hand to look at him, to watch the red flush of his skin sink back under the surface. He does that now, now that he's old, he reddens whenever he gets particularly emotional about something. 

Steve leans down, brushes his lips to the hot swell of Billy's cheekbone. He speaks there, feels the flutter of eyelashes on his nose. 

"Nothing bad is gonna happen to her." He leans back, blinks down at Billy with a smirk. "I know for a fact that Max had the mortifying sex talk with her and that Maddy is a responsible girl. She'll be fine."

Billy furrows his brows.

"And even if she isn't, if he break her heart, she has a wonderful godfather to help her through anything."

He seems a bit mollified at that; Steve sweeps down for a here-and-gone kiss before jumping up. Something in his back cracks but he ignores it, breathes through the twinge. 

"Now, do you want a hot water bottle for your knee?"

Billy grimaces but holds a hand out; Steve takes it and they hobble together to their mess of a kitchen, arm in arm. 


	2. A Slice of Toast for your Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooops I did it again. This really is self-indulgent, I love it.

Billy isn't usually up before Steve. 

Steve is a light sleeper; _before_ , he used to rise with the birds as soon as dawn colored the skies with hues of blue and pink. Now he wakes right before the sun, when the night is thick and his anxiety spiking. 

Usually, Billy turns into him when he blinks his eyes open, like a magnetic pull to keep him in bed a little bit longer, keep him in the safety of their home for another minute. 

But the bed is cold this morning, and Steve shivers and bundles the blankets around his shoulders, blearily tries to guess the time by the silence outside. There isn't a chirp; it probably is around four a.m. 

He layers on two sweaters before taking the stairs slowly, feet bare and ears prickling. 

"Billy?" he calls out, very softly; it feels like it rings across the house like a church bell. 

No one answers; his call echoes back to him empty and fruitless. 

Steve pads in the kitchen, surveys the loaf of bred out on the counter and the burning coffee in the pot. He looks through the window, in the dark and thick night long enough that there is statics dancing behind his eyelids when he close them. 

He's about to retreat to the living room when he sees a dot of orange in the black. 

He turns a light on and pushes the french windows open. 

"Billy?"

He grunts for answer; Steve wants to roll his eyes. Instead, he carefully pads out, tucks his hands in the warmth of his armpits. It's a cold spring night, and the blades of grass cut the plant of his feet with icy beads of water. 

"What are you doing out?"

Steve gets close enough to see the blur of Billy's face, illuminated by the light of his cigarette and the square of light at his ankles. He looks deeply amused from where Steve stands, sprawled back on their metallic garden chair; Steve shivers at the sight. 

"How long have you been here? Aren't you cold?"

Billy looks at him from under his lashes and sits up, stubs out his smoke directly on the iron table; Steve notes another butt and frowns; the last time they have talked about it, Billy had quite smoking. 

"I'm fine," he says, and his voice is like gravel, coarse from sleep and fog. 

He takes one of Steve hands and tugs him closer, pulls him in his lap; Steve falls on his knees and curls on himself, slips his knuckles right under the collar of his shirt, where Billy burns warm and comforting. Billy shivers, brushes cold lips on his temples in retaliation. It ignites something familiar in Steve's chest; a fire that brightens with affection. 

He reaches out and kisses him on the corner of his mouth, feels the flutter of lashes on his cheek as Billy gets him closer. He tastes like burnt tobacco, cloying and a little heady; his skin is really cold, and Steve feels it warming up with his foggy breaths, feels the muscles of the arms holding him flush relax as they share space and heat. 

When Billy sprawls back, Steve tucks his head on the crook of his neck and pulls his feet up to hide them under his thigh. 

"Did you have a nightmare?" he asks and he's looking at their kitchen, focuses on the sink and the leaky faucet there, watches as a drop of water beads, grows and grows before finally becoming fat enough and yielding to gravity. It happens twice before Billy answers. 

He hums. Let's another drop fall, finds a way to get a hand under Steve's cocoon of pullovers. Breathes out. 

"The monsters came into our house." He shrugs, like he just told Steve what he was cooking for breakfast. Careless, nonchalant. Practiced. "They attacked us in our sleep. It was over real quick."

Steve slips a hand through Billy's short curls, tugs a little bit; finds his spine rigid and unyielding. Sighs heavily, looks at the goosebumps appearing on Billy's collarbones. 

"I should never had told you about them."

Billy scoffs, tightens his arm around Steve's waist. 

"Yes, because it would have been easy to hide it from me."

They both remember the ear-splitting screeches of Steve's nightmares, the panic that would make him push the blankets away and soak his pillow with tears. Steve hadn't thought that he would pass on his burden to Billy; he would have endured silently if he had known that he would startle awake in his place, finds himself overwhelmed by the idea of monsters he has never seen. 

Billy kisses his hairline, speaks here. 

"I don't mind it."

Steve burrows closer, feels guilt prickling between his ribs. 

Billy pinches his side, startles a yelp out of him. He doesn't move though; he's not that cold anymore and Billy rubs a soothing thumb over the lingering burn anyway. 

"I really don't mind it," and his damp breathe slides on his forehead. "It's once in a while, I won't die from it."

Steve scrunches up his nose, scratches at a spot on Billy's skin, just to feel him here. 

"It was illegal to tell you, that's what it was."

Billy laughs his Steve-is-being-cute laugh; it's a short thing, more snort than real laughter. 

"Well I guess we should be getting married then, make it so I can't testify against you at your trial."

Steve snorts, sticks out his tongue at him even if he doesn't really see it; it wets a spot at the junction of his shoulder and neck. 

"Well, good luck making that legal."

Billy sighs, presses one last smile-curved kiss on Steve's head. 

"Come on, let's get you inside, it's cold."

The inside of their house is warm, but Steve sticks to Billy's back like a bedbug, and spills lukewarm coffee on their feet in an attempt at toasting bread. They're still laughing about it when they get back to bed, sunlight making the curtains pink.

**Author's Note:**

> (this is unbetaed and I'm really tired, so sorry for the typos)


End file.
